


Never Let Me Down Again

by Miss_M



Series: J/B in Depeche Mode Key [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Depeche Mode
Genre: F/M, Post - A Dance With Dragons, Quests, Songfic, Trust Issues, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 01:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1207963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_M/pseuds/Miss_M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is there anything else I should know?” Jaime asks, not turning his head to look at Brienne behind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Let Me Down Again

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics can be found [here](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/depechemode/neverletmedownagain.html). I own nothing.

“Is there anything else I should know?” Jaime asks, not turning his head to look at Brienne behind him. 

Tyrion once told him the Mountains of the Moon were named for their resemblance to the dark smudges on the moon’s surface. Sitting astride Honor at one of the lesser passes through those forbidding heights, Jaime knows this is too learned an explanation. The mountains were named because the moon and stars are uncommonly large and clear, seen from so high up in the thin air and biting wind, wind like an icy, scaly beast dragging itself between the rocks. Or maybe that’s just the Winter squeezing itself around them like a gauntleted fist around a chicken’s neck. 

Brienne’s reply is almost lost in the wind and the night. “No. You know everything.” 

Jaime does turn in his saddle then, takes her in, a heavy, solid, stony presence astride her horse, her hands light on the reins and soft in Glory’s mane. The tired horse whickers as Brienne strokes it. 

Jaime gave her Honor’s warlike companion when they left Pennytree, rather than have her go on riding the spavined haunt the bay mare he had gifted her at King’s Landing had become. He wonders, not for the first time, if he had known even then that he would not see the Kingsroad or his army again, that if he left Glory behind one half of the silliest-named pair of horses which ever grazed would be all alone. That Brienne was the only one who could ride a horse named Glory, and not seem a rutting fool. 

“Are you certain?” he insists, more acidly than he intended. 

It is almost midnight, yet Brienne’s eyes are clear and shiny like the stars above them. The stars here are as large as apples, as fists in the clear, cold sky, the Vale of Arryn a spread of dark brocade far below, so far Jaime cannot imagine ever setting foot there. Would almost prefer to stay here, at this mountain pass, between the Riverlands and the Vale, between the past and the future, only Brienne and two sanguinely named horses for company. 

Brienne looks him in the eye. “Yes, ser,” she says, an echo of hurt and guilt in her calm voice. “I have told you everything.” 

She could not meet his eyes till the truth spilled out of her, right before Lady Stoneheart’s men set upon them. Seeing her eyes now, turned to him with all her shame and truthfulness, Jaime feels the last vestiges of suspicion clamped around his heart ease and slip away, iron rings turned light as birds. 

Jaime nods curtly, ever the commander of men and women. “Never lie to me again, wench.” The words are unnecessary, but he feels a strong urge to say them. 

Brienne’s face turns stubborn, almost angry. “I did not let them hurt you, ser,” she replies hotly, as hotly as Brienne ever says anything. “I would not allow any harm I knew of beforehand to come to you now. If you distrust me, you need not continue.” 

She must always push things too far. She even knocked him out of the way before he could strike down what was left of Catelyn Stark, lest he broke his vow never to raise arms against Stark or Tully again, weighing her own vow to her lady as less binding. Jaime once killed a man he was sworn to protect, yet he would vouch that act hurt him nowhere near as much as Brienne was hurt in destroying the last remnant of Lady Stark. Even though the dead woman broke her promise and let Brienne’s squire and that hedge knight who’d joined Brienne’s quest die, still Brienne thinks hers are the blackest deeds. Yet she is woman enough to bear the brunt of her vows, even now. 

Jaime shakes his head at Brienne, marveling at his own patience. “You misunderstand, my lady, as always. I am where I want to be, with whom I want to be, riding the only Honor left to me. Now lead on, lest Winter catch us dawdling here, and Sansa Stark is a woman old and barren by the time snows melt and we reach her.”

For a moment he is certain Brienne will argue with him, for form and habit’s sake, but then she urges Glory forward, starts to negotiate the steep descent into the dark Vale. 

They have gone barely half a league when Brienne pulls up short, her voice a strangled hiss. She points. Jaime follows her trembling finger to where tiny stars wink on and off among the stones and dead grass by the path, much smaller than their sisters far above. Stars fallen to earth and wheeling with a speed which cannot portend other than the end of everything. 

Fireflies in Winter, and at that altitude. 

“Impossible,” Brienne chokes out. 

Jaime shrugs, though she cannot see it. “As are dead who come back, kings who slaughter their subjects, and indeed you and me on this darkling road after everything which has happened.” 

Brienne twists around in her saddle, her face drawn tight and pale, spooked in a way nothing done and seen so far managed to scare her. 

Jaime smiles, makes his voice kinder, gentler. “Eddard Stark was right about one thing at least,” he says softly. “Winter is always coming. But look around you, Brienne. It is a fine night, and some lights still flicker.” 

Her face remains as hard as a butcher's block, but some color returns to her cheeks under Jaime’s gaze, her maiden’s blood stirred by his foolish, sentimental words. Yet he only spoke the truth. On the edge of mountains and Winter, with stars above and fireflies by their path, rare and astonishing as diamonds, as Brienne’s eyes, it would be hard even for a cynic such as himself to find fault with this night.


End file.
